Another white man, says the report, was W. Van Beek, who was sentenced from the mayor’s court January 6. The report says that Van Beek was still on the farm February 1, and that if the mayor’s docket was correct, he had then worked seven days overtime.
He also says that Frank Lynch, fined $10 and $4.30 costs in the mayor’s court, December 29, was released from the farm February 1, and that if the mayor’s docket is correct, he has worked 14 days overtime.
Transportation Again?—The Buffalo (N. Y.) Express states that
the question of exiling habitual or professional criminals is being agitated in England. In a recent report of the British prison commissioners it is noted that the number of persons having previous convictions has in late years risen from 78 to 87 per cent. The latest available figures show that in England only 118 of 916 sentenced to penal servitude had not been previously convicted, and that the greater number of old offenders had from six to twenty convictions against them. It is estimated that at the present time there are in London alone 20,000 habitual criminals. “The only way of dealing with these habitual criminals”, says an English authority, “is to expel them from the community against which they wage incessant war. A third conviction should cause the prisoner to be deported to some island and reduced to a state of industrial serfdom, in which he could earn his living.”
To adopt this suggestion means a return to the old system of convict colonies. An obstacle to the segregation plan under present conditions is the scarcity of lands available for such purposes. Suitable island territory is at a premium. Continental land except in isolated cases is not desirable for the location of convict colonies, because of the opportunities for escape. The alternative is the establishment of prison farms—a system experimented with more or less during recent years. Here, too, the opportunities for escape are many. The prison farm is most suitable to first termers. But that still leaves the question of disposition of the professional criminal unsettled.
Idleness Reduced at Ohio Penitentiary.—The Columbia Journal says that “a remarkable change in penitentiary conditions has occurred since Warden Thomas was put in charge of the institution last summer by Governor Cox. At that time there were 750 idle men in the institution; to-day only 200 men are in the idle house. Within the next two weeks the idle house will be more than conspicuous by the absence of occupants.”
The new school and the woolen mills nearing completion will result in the depletion of the ranks of the idle house. This is the final solution of one of the biggest problems at the penitentiary, which Governor Cox insisted should be met when he placed Warden Thomas in charge. The prisoners in the school will attend six-hour sessions.
“The White City,” said to be the finest example of cell-block construction in the country, is the name given by prisoners at Ohio penitentiary to the new cell block which replaced one built in 1874. “The White City” houses 580 men. It is known officially as cell blocks “C” and “D.” It has 280 cells, built in five ranges or stories, with 28 cells to a range.